{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=DA8D5066-5F77-4915-84D4-81A3E4425A73", "Thune Joins The Briefing with Steve Scully", "2025-10-17", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Clickhere to listen to The Briefing with Steve Scully\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined The Briefing with Steve Scully on SiriusXM radio.\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 historic obstruction:\n\n\u201c[T]he politics around it is \u2026 largely different.\u201d\n\n[T]he Democrats are under an enormous amount of pressure from their hard left, and they\u2019ve got this big rally in town this weekend, and, you know, they\u2019re just demanding that they fight, no matter what the issue is, the president, on pretty much \u2026 whatever comes up in the Senate these days.\n\n\u201c[N]othing is as it\u2019s been in the past in terms of moving legislation, moving executive branch nominations, everything is much harder than it used to be. I think part of it is \u2026 it\u2019s the politics of the moment \u2026 but regrettably, we\u2019re in a situation right now where a lot of federal workers aren\u2019t getting paid. And the way to change that is to open up the government.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 shutdown hypocrisy:\n\n\u201c[Y]ou know \u2026 nobody wins. I\u2019ve said that before, and that used to be a view that was held by our colleagues on the other side, by the Democrats. But it seems, at least now, that there is a \u2026 partly, I think, around this big event this weekend here in Washington, with all the left-wing activist groups coming to town, a real sense that they needed to not do anything until that rally was over.\n\n\u201cAnd even then, I mean, they\u2019re just under a tremendous amount of pressure just to resist and fight. And I think at this point, even the simple things that normally, like we just tried to get on the defense appropriations bill, which should be legislation that, most years, gets 80-plus votes in the Senate, and the Democrats blocked even proceeding to it.\u201d\n\n\u201c[A] handful of folks on the other side have to come to their senses.\n\n\u201cWe have a bill that\u2019s sitting at the desk in the Senate. You\u2019ve covered this place long enough to know that we could pick that up today, pass it, send it to the president, he would sign it into law, and the government would open up again.\n\n\u201cSo for now \u2026 we need five more Democrats. We\u2019re at 55 votes in the Senate, and five more Democrats give us the requisite 60 to open up the government.\u201d\n\nOn rising health care costs:\n\n\u201c[W]e want health care premiums to be lower, not higher, and health care to be more affordable, not less. And I think one of the challenges we have right now is the way some of these programs are designed.\n\n\u201c[T]he specific question we\u2019re dealing with right now are the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits, or what we call the covid subsidies, that were put in place by the Democrats just a few years ago. They set the expiration date. The reason we\u2019re dealing with this expiration date at the end of the year is because they put that in place. But that program, for example, is so inflationary. I mean, there isn\u2019t anything in there to contain costs. The payments are made directly from the government to the insurance companies. The insurance companies go out and automatically enroll people. There are zero-premium policies. People don\u2019t even know they have coverage. And there\u2019s no income cap \u2026\n\n\u201cSo it\u2019s a program in desperate need of reform and I think there\u2019s a path forward to be able to do that, but you know, you can\u2019t do it while the government is shut down.\n\n\u201cAnd I think right now \u2026 the big question is going to be, will the Democrats open up the government so that we can actually address this health care issue before \u2026 the end of the year, which is when \u2026 the deadline \u2026 for this program, expire.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=DA8D5066-5F77-4915-84D4-81A3E4425A73"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.3127011954784393, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}